Tuesday, June 2nd, 10:15 am to 11:30 am

C2 Centering Diverse Perspectives: Redefining Child Well-Being Through Stakeholder Voices

Yujeong Chang, The Ohio State University
Charis Stanek, The Ohio State University

What does child well-being truly mean to those most impacted by the child welfare system? While well-being has long been recognized as one of the three goals of child welfare alongside safety and permanency, it has often received less attention, and its meaning is typically limited to physical, mental, and educational indicators. Recently, there has been growing interest to center well-being more holistically. This interactive workshop centers the voices of five stakeholder groups—youth with out-of-home care experiences, biological parents of youth in the system, kinship caregivers, foster parents, and caseworkers—whose perspectives from the Northwest Ohio CRP's 2024-2025 project reveal both overlapping and distinct understandings of what child well-being means and how it should be supported. By engaging with these diverse perspectives, participants will gain deeper insight into gaps between stakeholder definitions of well-being and current practices and collectively consider opportunities to strengthen how well-being is understood and supported.

C3 THE CA CHILD DEATH REVIEW TEAM TOOLKIT: SUPPORTING TEAMS IN PREVENTING CHILD FATALITIES

Stuart Oppenheim, CFPIC
Stephanie Biegler, Retired
Jeoff Gordon, Retired

This session will provide an overview of the challenges for Child Death Review Teams and how California's Critical Incidents Citizen Review Panel is supporting Teams in helping prevent child fatalities. We will highlight the development of the CDRT Toolkit and provide an in-depth look at the Toolkit. In addition, we will invite discussion about how the work of California's CI CRP can support the work of others across the country and internationally in understanding the causes of child fatalities in order to prevent their further occurrence.

C4 CRP Serving a Dual Role

Deb Farrell, NCRP Advisory Board

CAPTA allows for states to utilize an existing committee/group to also serve as one of their state CRPs provided it can also meet all the federal requirements for CAPTA CRP.  This can help to address some of the challenges faced by CRP programs and provide for some efficiencies, however, it requires a more purposeful approach to meeting the requirements and objectives of both the existing group and the CRP program. This workshop will provide practical tips on identifying and utilizing an existing group and discuss options on how to integrate and operationalize the CAPTA CRP mandate.

C5 Rebuilding True Kinship Practice Through Youth-Led Accountability, System Innovation, and Investment

This session will be led by California Youth Connection (CYC)—a youth-led, statewide nonprofit organization that empowers young people currently and formerly navigating foster care and juvenile justice systems to influence policy, legislation, and practice across California and nationally.

Child welfare systems across the country publicly commit to kinship, family preservation, and relational permanency. These values are embedded in FFPSA, state statutes, agency strategies, and county improvement plans. Yet young people and families consistently experience a system where these commitments are inconsistently implemented, poorly monitored, and overshadowed by conflicting mandates. This youth-led session examines the gap between kinship culture in policy and kinship in practice, drawing from CYC’s statewide organizing, legislative advocacy, and lived  experience expertise. We will highlight key areas where kinship values break down—especially around sibling connection, workforce training, court processes, and the structural tensions within child welfare agencies. CYC will also share recent  advances in bridging this gap through youth-led policymaking (AB 562), cross-system collaboration, and the development of new statewide training content grounded in lived experience. 78 millis